29 giugno 2014

With The Division Bell 20th anniversary box set, vinyl (and standalone DVD) grabbing headlines with its release around this weekend depending on where you are in the world, another set of releases that are due on Monday (June 30th) in the UK and Europe, are sure to be just as eagerly awaited by the vinyl junkies amongst you, and really shouldn't be overlooked - hence this reminder for you. On that day, Rhino are releasing Syd Barrett's The Madcap Laughs, Barrett, and Opel albums on heavyweight 180g vinyl. With the resurgence of interest and take-up of vinyl, these high quality new editions are sure to be popular.
For the Syd novices out there, The Madcap Laughs was his first solo album, released January 1970. Featuring a band including David Gilmour on various instruments, Jerry Shirley, Willie Wilson and Robert Wyatt, there are some very highly regarded tracks throughout the record. Barrett was to follow, in November of the same year. Again, David Gilmour performs on the album, as does Richard Wright. The songs on the album generally have a lighter tone than Madcap, but this was to be his second and final conventional album. Opel was released in October 1988, and was a collection of unreleased material and alternate takes from the Madcap and Barrett sessions.

This is the second revision of the original 1985 release. The original mix for vinyl release in 1985 suffered from lack of time and distractions. It was remixed at Suma in 1996 with the radical approach that David Thomas had originally planned for. A less than good post-production process, hurried again, caused Thomas to re-visit the various mixes in April 2014. All mixes were examined and, in some cases, edits were made or alternate mixes chosen. The audio was re-EQed by Paul Hamann and attention given to the post-production processing. This is the way it was supposed to sound. Lyrics are also available from the ubuprojex.com website.

When Gong’s much-anticipated headline slot at The Glade stage on Friday 27th June had to be cancelled due to Daevid Allen’s health problems, Steve Hillage, who was to guest with Gong that night, was asked to step in with System 7. Due to the circumstances Steve wants to do something uniquely special - the obvious choice was to invite some of the current Gong musicians to guest with him and partner Miquette Giraudy.
Together they plan to incorporate a few well known Gong instrumental tracks into a rocking System 7 set and bring it all to a rousing climax of rock/techno fusion. Joining them will be current Gong members Dave Sturt (bass and ambient sounds) and Ian East (flute and sax) plus Magick Brother and long-time Daevid Allen collaborator Graham Clark (violin). So we aim to vibe up the ailing alien allen with the positive, energising vibration of music - with the System 7, demi-Gong, Magick Brother combi, which will mix and match in new, mysterious and powerful ways, raise the holy cheeses high and send their essence around the globe - always our intent - but now with added laser-like focus.

"The tenth Otoroku release sees a return to the group that kickstarted the label - the veteran German reedsman and free jazz pioneer Peter Brötzmann with the long-running London bass/drums partnership of John Edwards and Steve Noble. After the release of '…The Worse The Better' that group went on to play a series of devastating shows in Europe and to emerge as one of Brötzmann's finest working groups. Over the same period Peter was developing a deep rapport with Jason Adasiewicz, the upstart vibraphone player from Chicago. What seems on paper like an awkward pairing reveals itself on stage and on record as a symbiotic revelation. Adasiewicz's physical attack matching Brötzmann for impact whilst the extended sustain of the vibes opens up an eerie space for some of Brötzmann's most fertile lyricism. The recording is from the last set of a two-day residency at Cafe Oto that brought these two groups together for an astonishing quartet. Adasiewicz and Noble struck up an immense partnership in rhythm. Edwards wrestled with a broken house bass and failing amplifier and still managed new levels of invention - stoking the others onwards. Brötzmann was clearly energised - I swear I saw him dancing at the side of the stage whilst exchanging a shattered reed. And for all the usual rhetoric of free jazz bluster and machismo, this is a meeting characterised by the joy of communal creation that makes you want to dance - even if only in your head."

The world premiere of Taking the Dog for a Walk is part of the London’s East End Film Festival 2014. A director’s cut of 128 minutes will be screened on this occasion. Many of the musicians who have participated in the film will attend.
After Sunny’s time now, his authoritative portrait of the American Free jazz drumming legend Sunny Murray, Luxembourg filmmaker Antoine Prum turns his attention to the British Free Improvised Music scene in this new feature-length music documentary. Branching out from a three-day festival in Berlin conceived and organised for the purpose of the film, Taking the Dog for a Walk maps the scene of British Improvisers, past and present. Following the leads of artistic advisor Tony Bevan, it retraces the road that leads from its emergence and emancipation from the various free music movements of the 1960s to the recent (albeit small) surge in popularity as talented new players and dynamic venues are coming to the fore.
While not trying to be exhaustive, the film talks to key players who have helped define and redefine an ever-changing musical idiom by taking on board new influences. In his search for the ‘Britishness’ of British Free Improvised Music, Prum and Bevan are assisted by stand-up comedian and bona fide Derek Bailey expert Stewart Lee, who converses with musicians from different generations and backgrounds to uncover the specifics of a genre that refutes the very notion of genre. Alternating with extended live music sequences, the conversations gravitate around the idiosyncrasies of improvisation, from playing in front of the proverbial ‘four men and a dog’ to pursuing a career in a milieu where success is not measured by mainstream criteria. Guided by its sense of humour, the film suggests that the relative confidentiality of free improvised music, rather than hampering its development, has ensured its continuing renewal.

23 giugno 2014

Prophetika Perfume's ancient formula invokes a mirage of memories and mysteries and incites a call to action. Hints of Cairo and Chicago -- and Casseopia!Saturnia Perfume is created from the highest quality Neroli distillate of bitter orange blossoms. Native to the Far East and cultivated in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia, this heavenly scent stimulates the brain waves and works well as an Afrodisiac. Note that Neroli was the seductive essence of Narcisse Noir, created in 1911, immortalized in Sunset Boulevard, and was, more importantly, singing brakeman Jimmie Rodgers' favorite fragrance. Neroli blossoms would transport Jimmie far from tuberculine huff and smokestack lightning. Now let the scent transport you out of the doom and into orbit as you ponder 'This Planet is doomed'. Saturnia was bottled during the Capricornus July full hay moon. This is the constellation that provides passage for the soul at death. Saturnia is truly... out of this world!

22 giugno 2014

E il mese scorso a Carla Bley ha conferito il dottorato onorario per meriti musicali il New England Conservatory di Boston (Stati Uniti). Se ne fa un vanto l'ECM, nel darne notizia: "New England Conservatory has bestowed honorary Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degrees on distinguished musicians and scholars at its 143rd annual Commencement Exercises, Sunday, May 18 at 3 p.m. in NEC’s Jordan Hall. The recipients included jazz composer and bandleader Carla Bley and Estonian-born composer Arvo Pärt. Carla Bley’s notable recorded works include A Genuine Tong Funeral, written for Gary Burton, the jazz opera Escalator Over the Hill, Fleur Carnivore, The Carla Bley Big Band Goes to Church, Looking for America, and The Lost Chords amongst many others. One of the pioneers in the development of artist-owned record labels, she and her second husband Michael Mantler created WATT Records, for which she recorded many of her works and which has been distributed through ECM since the 1970s. In September 2013 Trios, her first album for ECM itself, produced by Manfred Eicher in Lugano, was released to critical and public acclaim. Bley has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972 and the German Jazz Trophy “A Life for Jazz” in 2009."
Congratulazioni!

Karen Mantler is back, with a new collection of songs about the human condition and troubles large and small. Nonchalantly and disarmingly, Karen sings of homeless people in the park, the disappearance of friends, the frustrations of being monolingual, the challenge of improvisation, music with a mind of its own, and encounters with bill collectors, lawyers, snowstorms, and ash-spewing volcanoes. Through it all she sounds like a survivor, monitoring mishaps with deadpan humour.
Almost 20 years have passed since the recording of her last XtraWatt album, Farewell, which praised and buried Arnold, Mantler’s meanwhile legendary cat. Since then, Mantler has kept herself busy by the most diverse means. She was briefly a Virgin artist with her Pet Project recording of 1999, and has appeared on several albums with parents Michael Mantler (The School of Understanding) and Carla Bley (The Carla Bley Big Band Goes To Church, Looking for America, Appearing Nightly), been a member of the Golden Palominos, participated in diverse Robert Wyatt tribute bands (Wyatt responded by recording some of her tunes on Cuckooland), as well as hommages to Disney and Nino Rota. She has also played accordion on street corners, given harmonica lessons, and served coffee in SoHo.
The struggle to maintain her own projects has perhaps strengthened Karen’s idiosyncratic songwriting. The cast of Business is Bad is smaller than on her previous discs and, arguably, more effective. Her voice, and her distinctive chromatic harmonica and piano are foregrounded. Subtle and supple support in the realization of the pieces is provided throughout by Kato Hideki - who also co-produced the album - and Doug Wieselman.

To celebrate the life and work of Lindsay Cooper (1951-2013), four legendary bands are coming together from points halfway across the earth to perform Lindsay’s music at the Barbican as part of EFG London Jazz Festival. The concert will feature Henry Cow (1968-1978, who said they’d never re-form), Lindsay Cooper’s Music for Films (1982-1986, which does what it says on the label), News From Babel (1984-1986, who never performed live), and Oh Moscow (1987-1993, assembled to play the song-cycle of the same name). The confirmed lineup features Alfred Harth, Anne-Marie Roelofs, Chris Cutler, Dagmar Krause, Fred Frith, John Greaves, Michel Berckmans, Phil Minton, Sally Potter, Tim Hodgkinson, Veryan Weston and Zeena Parkins.
Lindsay Cooper, in common with most film composers, was poly-stylistic and no respecter of musical convention; less commonly, she also understood performance dynamics and the chemistry of bands. The concert, produced by Serious, offer a unique and never-to-be-repeated opportunity to hear some extraordinary repertoire, as well as to catch these four exceptional and now legendary bands.

19 giugno 2014

Prende il via domani l'undicesima edizione dell'Avantgarde Festival, speciale evento organizzato da Jean-Hervé Peron e la moglie Jeanne-Marie Varain presso la propria casa di campagna nell'area di Schiphorst, nel nord della Germania non lontano da Amburgo. Musicisti e artisti di diversa esperienza e provenienza si incontrano - e incontrano il pubblico - in modo amichevole e informale, dando vita a svariate attività musicali, artistiche e sociali oltre le convenzioni e le restrizioni spazio-temporali dei comuni appuntamenti festivalieri. Nel fitto programma delle tre giornate è suggerito anche un inedito incontro tra Mani Neumeier, Zappi Diermeier, Chris Cutler, Geoff Leigh, Yumi Hara Cawkwell e Jean-Hervé Peron che ruba (o presta?) il sottotitolo all'intero weekend: Jump for Joy!
Scrivono gli organizzatori: "With the celebration of the 10th Avantgarde Festival in 2013, we had achieved more than we had ever hoped for. Year on year things improved: more groups, better technical equipment, larger audiences, but yet retaining the intimate and homely atmosphere of Schiphorst. Now, forward into a new decade! The Avantgarde Festival offers an ideal platform for artists to express themselves: excellent technical conditions, efficient organization, yet a relaxed atmosphere... and above all an attentive, knowledgeable and open minded audience. The experiments and spontaneous collaborations of previous festivals remain most important to us. This year we shall again offer and expand these possibilities in our Annex - a large stage area within the festival site, which offers space for performances of all kinds, running independently to the main programme. Part of the special flavour of the Avantgarde Festival is our continuing policy of no artists’ backstage and all have the opportunity to relax and talk over dinner, at the bar or around the bonfire. Everybody here is a headliner, whether guest, crew member or artist; they all contribute to the success of the festival. "Three days of utopia" according to Chris Cutler. So, what does it mean to organize a festival which calls itself avantgarde and which claims to be utopian? For us, these are nothing but names, pseudonyms for an idea, for a path; for us it is more about an experimental approach to art, about the desire to create something new and to share it with others, a non-interest in the raging torrent of art-marketing. For us, it is simply dedication and uniqueness. This is how we want it and this is how our Utopia, our dream shall live again this year!".

The 78 Project is a documentary and recording journey inspired by Alan Lomax and his quest to capture music where it lived throughout the early 20th century. Our project brings the spirit of his work into the present as we pair breakthrough musicians with the songs and the fascinating recording technology of the past. With just one microphone, one authentic 1930′s Presto direct-to-acetate disk recorder, and one blank lacquer disc, musicians are given one take to cut a record anywhere they choose. What we have found is that the film, music and feelings that result defy space and time, living music inspired by ghosts.

Amidst the din of the unrestrained punk rock that surrounded them back in 1979, the Cardiff, Wales, trio of coolly, detatched vocalist Alison Statton, songwriter-guitarist-organist Moxham, and his bass-playing brother Philip eschewed noise at all costs. With just an organ, guitar, and vocals, played over beats emanating from a crude, tiny nuts 'n' bolts drum machine that had been recorded on a cassette tape, Young Marble Giants unleashed a uniquely quiet, ever-so-subtle strain of lo-fi, post-punk pop. Moxham and his band mates stripped their sound down to the very bone - removing all the meat and leaving behind no fat whatsoever. Theirs was absolutely the most skeletal that could be achieved; no overdubs and no production values whatsoever save the occasional guitar reverb. The drum machine beats I mentioned were virtually identical to those they used in their live show (apparently the solitary cassette tape was the only source for drum sounds that they ever had, or needed). The trio recorded Colossal Youth over a period of five short days, and completed the mixing in a mere 20 minutes. Yet despite its austerity, the atmosphere contained in Colossal Youth remains unparalleled by any other recording made prior, or since. As writer, Ken Taylor has said of the the group and their sole LP, "Young Marble Giants secretively brought more darkness and angst into the record collections of British kids than any smack-addled punk band ever could. Alison Statton's disaffected voice so strangely belies the emotions that were written into Moxham's brokenhearted tunes. The band left us with years of stereo-side analysis, mystery, and miserable beauty with just that one record."

It is our pleasure to introduce to you our third film in the Romantic Warriors-A Progressive Saga series that will guide you through the amazing history, development of the Canterbury Scene and its influence on contemporary bands. The Canterbury Scene of the late 60s and early 70s marked a remarkable period in the history of British progressive rock music and, most notably, the development of jazz rock. A number of later bands that formed outside of Canterbury have been labeled as “Canterbury bands” (including a few in Europe and the US), some of these bands were founded by a member of Soft Machine or Caravan while others were obviously influenced by these Canterbury groups. The scene was a breeding ground for world class players of considerable harmonic sophistication who innovated and expanded the music of their time. Through interviews with "Canterbury Scene" musicians, clips of live performances, photographs, and current/archival footage, the film takes a closer look at the bands that are now considered a part of the Canterbury Family Tree.

10 giugno 2014

Su YouTube e Inconstant Sol è iniziata, con il consenso dell'autore, la diffusione delle opere di Paul Dunmall pubblicate in proprio a partire dagli anni Novanta con etichetta Duns Limited Editions e distribuite inizialmente in cd-r in poche decine di copie. Registrazioni di gran pregio che documentano l'evoluzione e l'incessante ispirazione del sassofonista e che lo ritraggono in contesti diversi, dall'ottetto al quintetto, dal trio al solo, alle prese con sassofoni - tra cui anche il saxello che fu di Elton Dean - flauti e cornamuse di vario tipo.
Di questa cospicua autoproduzione Steve Lake scrisse un gran bene, quando il catalogo constava di una ventina di titoli (giunti poi oltre quota settanta): "Once upon a time, it's said, record companies were able to keep pace with the inspirations of creative musicians. And whenever a Coltrane or a Miles or a Monk needed to document a new period, phase or idea, the microphones were there. An idyllic era in retrospect, it was a long time ago. Today, the relationship of the improviser to the music business is more distanced than ever. Sales plummet in the mainstream, the "death of jazz" is trumpeted once again in the trade press, the number of jazz musicians still courted by the majors dwindles by the week. Many fine musicians are reduced to paying their way onto one of the pseudo-independent labels that now define the "cockroach capitalisrn" of the alternative jazz marketplace. Small wonder that others throw up their hands and go it alone. Click on the European Free Improvisation Pages on the Internet for a glimpse of just how many. Yet the feeling persists in some quarters that self-made CDs are not "real" records – they won't be reviewed in the dailies, say, if they don't carry the imprimatur of a commercial label or have "proper" distribution. If the same criteria were applied to literary production, history would have been deprived of such self-published classics as Joyce's Ulysses, Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Whitman's Leaves of Grass, Lawrence's Women In Love, and the complete works of William Blake. For instance. I don't know how many Joyces or Whitmans there are in the world of improvisation but for sheer prolificacy and range and intensity, few contemporary artists in any idiom can hold a candle to Paul Dunmall. The South London-born saxophonist's resumé as a player takes in work with everybody from Johnny Guitar Watson to the London Jazz Composers Orchestra, from Alice Coltrane to Robin Williamson. He's one of the most open-minded, open-eared improvisers anywhere and that openness is reflected in Duns Limited Edition, arguably the most exciting home-grown label to have shot up in our new century."

08 giugno 2014

E stasera, Keith & Julie Tippett: Couple in Spirit. "We never rehearse together or talk about what we're going to do. You're living on your nerve ends. It's like being in a dream and yet awake at the same time because you have to respond as well as to instigate, and your whole body is tuned to going for the magic."
A Fasano (Br), Teatro Sociale, alle ore 21.00.

06 giugno 2014

Trasmesso dalla BBC Radio 4 nell'ottobre 2012, ma non più recuperabile negli archivi web dell'emittente, il programma di Alan Hall di Falling Tree The Voices of Robert Wyatt è riapparso presso SoundCloud: "Robert Wyatt has been recognised as a prog-rock drummer, jazz composer, avant-garde cornet player, artist and activist in a wheelchair. But, above all else, he has been known by one of the most instantly recognisable and distinctive voices of the last fifty years. Forever associated with Shipbuilding, Elvis Costello's song written in reaction to the Falklands War, Wyatt's voice and the causes he gives voice to are intricately entwined. This intimate radio portrait, in his own words, traces Wyatt's journey from the psychedelic excesses of Soft Machine (appearing both with Jimi Hendrix and at the BBC Proms), through the life-changing accident that has confined him to a wheelchair for almost forty years, to recent celebrated musical projects that are reaching new audiences."

Scrive Niels Van Tomme per Other Music: "The album Black Chamber, from 2003, occupies the majority of the second disc of this double CD of recordings made by David Toop for the renowned Sub Rosa label. A brooding, sensual, noirish sound spectacle, it pushes the idea of ambient music towards exciting new territories. Touching upon a multitude of avant-garde escapades, such as field recording, improvisation, exotica, sound collage, and noise, to only name the most immediately apparent ones, the record offers the culmination of Toop's multifaceted musical interests, which famously have their origins in the 1970s London improv scene. The album starts, rather misleadingly, with chirping, unpleasant high-frequency tones, after which a vaguely Japanese sound design and weirdly shuffling rhythm make room for Lol Coxhill's dark saxophone arpeggios. This bold, accomplished sense of musical deception remains fully realized throughout the record's brilliant, sometimes irritating but always amusing, 50-plus minutes, which offer a truly captivating, kaleidoscopic sense of musical adventure."

In 1983, motivated by a strong artistic desire to return to his roots in the Coltrane sound, Christian Vander created the ensemble Offering, focused on vocals, keyboards and percussion. More experimental, leaving much more space for improvisation, this group allowed the musicians to explore new avenues. Thirty years have flown by, removing Offering from the sight and hearing of younger generations. Now they also can benefit from this wonderful gift that was Offering, Christian Vander and his musicians having decided to celebrate this anniversary by recreating the music with the same enthusiasm of the original. This initiative will delight all fans of the Magma experience, regardless of their age .